help - weird smell & color, need a fix!

Hi everyone,

I've recently jumped into running DWC 5-gal. buckets. Everything was going good, but over the weekend, I realized one of the buckets smelled rather nasty, and I could see some light foam on the sides of the bucket.

I flushed immediately and put new nutes & water in. I also made sure there was no light getting in. Today the same thing has happened. Water smells bad, foam residue back again, pH way high. I know that no light got in this time, but when I pulled out the rockwool cube from the netpot, I could see that there was a red tinge all the way around the bottom of the rockwool cube and netpot. It seems like whatever reddish mildew grew in there the first time also grew on the rockwool, which was never changed out with the nutes.

What should I do????

I don't think the roots are long enough to touch down into the reddish mildew part. Should I chance damaging the roots and cut off the bottom 1" of the rockwool? Can I 'sanitize' the rockwool with Hydrogen Peroxide?

I don't want to put the mildewy cube back into the bucket until its safe. Otherwise I'll just waste another bucket mixture. What is the quickest and safest way to remedy this for the plant? BTW, the plant was started from seed and is about 4-5" tall now.

Thank you in advance for your quick response!!!

Mr. Bond

Never heard of a red mildew, but red is typical of nute coloring and or if you're using hydroton it could
simply be the dust from that coming off.

If you begin to see white slime and or brown slime on your roots, it could be beginning of root rot, check
your nute temperature and see if it's lower than 75*.

If it's not just staining, and is root rot there are several ways which can help you contain and eliminate the
problem.

There are conditioners like Dutch Master Zone which can help you control bad growth in your reservoir
which can help control root rot by killing off good/bad growth in your reservoir.

Cooling your water temperatures can also help prevent this as bad bacteria has a harder time breeding
at temps 68* and lower.

Brew a beneficial tea, https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-how-breed-your-own-beneficial.html
This thread has everything you need to know about how to do it and what it does. Seems like the best solution
as it's cheap, and really brings some benefits to your grow using all those beneficials.

I'm not trying to get you hyped up that it's root rot, I think it's more just coloring from rocks/nutes. Check your
temps in your reservoir though, and make sure it's under 75* or else these problems can and most likely will be
yours.

If you have reddish mildew its because you didnt wash your hydroton like you are supposed to. If it stinks like rotten eggs you may have root rot.